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The Kid and Old Blue Eyes

By Stanley Fish October 28, 2007 7:08 pmOctober 28, 2007 7:08 pm

I once stood next to Ted Williams (I don’t recall if I actually said anything to him), and on another occasion Frank Sinatra came to my table carrying a chair for my mother-in-law. (Stay with me; these apparently random memories will be linked up.)

My father had taken me to a Masonic father-and-son night when I was perhaps 13 years old and Williams, dressed in his Red Sox uniform, was the guest of honor. What I remember is that he was very big.

I had my brief encounter with Sinatra much later. Along with my wife, her two sisters and her mother, I was eating dinner at Sinatra’s Cal-Neva Lodge in Tahoe. Our table was short a chair. Sinatra and a large party were at the next table. I leaned over and asked one of his party, a stunning blond, if I might borrow the empty chair next to her. She looked at me as if I were a presumptuous cockroach and said no. Sinatra had seen the exchange and immediately got up, grabbed the chair and held it while my mother-in-law sat down. I said, “Thank you.”

These small moments are on my mind these days for two reasons. The first is that Ted Williams and Frank Sinatra have been my heroes for as long as I can remember. For years I carried a newspaper picture of Williams (with the caption “Greatest American Since George Washington”) in my wallet until it finally disintegrated. As a teenager I played Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours” and “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers” for hours and bored my friends with what I took to be intricate analyses of Nelson Riddle’s great arrangement of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

In my study at home there are two large pictures, one (a painting) of my father, the other a 1953 photograph of Sinatra singing at a concert in Wembley Stadium; one hand caresses a stand-up microphone, the other grabs onto it for dear life. Shadows and a dim spotlight make it seem that he is all alone (much like the album cover of “In the Wee Small Hours”), though there must have been thousands in the audience. Presiding over both these pictures and hanging above the doorway is a 1946 American League championship pennant signed by Williams. This boy has never grown up.

I know that naming Ted Williams and Frank Sinatra as your heroes might raise an eyebrow or two. Both were notorious for bad behavior. Sinatra punched out reporters, consorted with gangsters, cut old friends cold (see Mickey Rooney’s autobiography), cheated on his wife and held life-long grudges. Williams feuded with reporters (he called them the “knights of the keyboard”), hit an old lady with a thrown bat, spat at fans, refused to tip his hat, smashed water-coolers and was generally surly.

On the other hand, both were also known for good works. Sinatra used his clout to force Las Vegas hotels to integrate, donated large amounts to charity, helped people he barely knew, and was a favorite of the musicians he performed with. Williams spoke out early for the inclusion of Negro League players in the Hall of Fame, was a stalwart fund-raiser for the Jimmy Fund (a charity dedicated to helping cancer-stricken children), was a mentor to younger players and a loyal friend.

But it is neither their vices nor their virtues that appeal to me. It is their single-minded dedication to craft, Sinatra to saloon singing and the lyrics he articulated with such precision, Williams to the science of hitting (the title of his excellent book). They both wanted to be the best at what they did, and they were.

And then there is the drama of their lives.

In Sinatra’s case, early success and increasing fame followed by a rapid decline, a tempestuous, doomed and very public second marriage, and then the spectacular comeback leading to even greater success and the title Chairman of the Board.

In Williams’s case, even earlier success, an excess of expectations, followed by a failure to perform in the clutch, injuries, the loss of the best years of his professional life to war and, after apparent decline, a glorious exit. He batted 388 when he was 39, famously hit a home run in his last at bat and had the good luck to have John Updike in attendance. (Updike’s essay “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” is a classic.) What he didn’t do is bring Boston a World Series championship, and for this some never forgave him.

And that brings me to the second reason that Sinatra and Williams, indomitable spirits who endured and ultimately did it their way, are on my mind these days. The Red Sox are in the World Series, and by the time you read this they may have won it.

Not the same Red Sox who so reliably provided heartbreak when I was growing up in Providence, Rhode Island. Those were the teams that always looked good on paper, but never performed in the field. “Wait till next year” was the New England anthem. And then, in 2004, next year improbably arrived. The enormousness of the event for those who lived and died (quite literally) with the team cannot be overestimated. Just take a look at the 2004 documentary “The Reverse of the Curse of the Bambino” and listen to celebrities and ordinary citizens, young and old, speak of what it meant to them. Eighty-six years is a long time, and some fans and their children lived out their lives in unrealized hope. In the film, younger generations go to the graves of their fathers and grandfathers and tell them the good news.

But it’s all different now.

Or is it? When the Red Sox fell behind 3-1 to the Cleveland Indians in the American League Championship series, all the old feelings came back, and I thought, there they go again. But it turned out that I was displaying too little faith and forgetting that you have to believe.

O.K., I believe, but after so many decades of disappointment, it isn’t easy. Especially because for six years I lived on the north side of Chicago and, in a moment of apostasy and desperation, became a Cub fan.

As one who grew up in Philadelphia, I can appreciate the sense of hopelessness that hung like a Joe Bfstplk cloud over decades of baseball seasons in Boston–and somehow the Braves don’t count…excepting the A’s whose triumphs were invariably followed by mass sell-offs of stars.

Baseball has a special hold on our emotions. Its players are neither exceptionally tall or large, they look like ourselves, but in much better shape. There’s no clock to thwart a rally or put a game out of reach. As this year’s ALCS demonstrated, victory can be snatched from the jaws of defeat.

I played several years on a black semi-pro team, the token white, with several teammates who had been left “stranded” by the demise of the Negro Leagues–a curious byproduct of Jackie Robinson’s entry to the majors. The games were combinations of exhilaration, frustration and tension. The complex teamwork required to turn a double play, cover bases, relay throws, shift positions with each batter and every pitch, brought a cerebral component to the athletic combat.

Now retired, I find baseball has a restorative, tonic effect, bringing eternal spring to a life in midwinter, now in Maine.

Why does your writing about baseball and Sinatra have such an effortless flow compared to recent columns on Ahab/Bush, Bollinger and other political issues?

Perhaps the subjects of craft, skill and sport lend themselves to a feeling of freedom, youth and clarity not found in the dark recesses of politics and academia.

It is a remarkable fact that I find myself so frequently in agreement with the author’s lines of reasoning and find little to no enthusiasm for the things he admires. This is a real conundrum. Does the author’s taste — which I find (frequently) mawkish and sentimental — invalidate his analyses? Is it Sinatra’s “craft,” one that is inextricable in our tired imagination with his ties to the gangster world, what leads Fish to his hard-headed (or is it just willful) cult of the pragmatic?

What I remember about Williams is that I held him responsible for breaking my 15-year-old heart. Boston could not support two teams, and it was the Braves who left Boston in 1952. They had no Williams. All of their players … Tommy Holmes, Earl Torgeson, Eddie Matthews and others … behaved themselves. The fans of the time, like some sports fans now, preferred to be insulted.
Sinatra, on the hand, never gave me cause to doubt his caring for his fans and I remained loyal to the end!

I sense a longing in Prof. Fish’s current lament about Sinatra and Williams. There is a familiarity inasmsuch as the passage of time for old farts such as us tend to look back and grasp for events early in our lives that shaped and motivated us to become what we have become. As a youngster I skipped school one early spring morning and waited outside the ballpark to obtain the autograph of Al Kaline right out of high school playing his first game as a Detroit Tiger. Kaline served for a long time as a model for me and countless other kids as to how to conduct oneself both on and off athletics fields. What Fish and I long for and lament is the absence of heroes, larger than life examples for the current generation of kids to emulate, heroics unsullied by drug usage. But there is hope. Go Curtis Granderson! Go Manny Ramirez!

After a career of picking himself up off the bottom, at one point even losing his well-known and well-honed voice, (and rising to the top of his game again with new albums and stage performances) Sinatra exhibited unexpected grace as he faced his end in virtual isolation and illness. He is said to have said, “You gotta love living — because dying is a son of a bitch.”

There’s something special about having an idol that has something in common with you… my first idol was Hank Greenberg… mostly because he was Jewish, like I am, but because he was a home-run hitter who helped his team win pennants, with timely hits and RBI’s and was a goodguy who stood up to bigots… but I learned in life that you did not have to be Jewish to be a Greenberg fan, nor Italian to root for Joe DiMaggio, or Black to cheer for Jackie Robinson, nor Polish to be a Stan Musial fan. It seemed that baseball fans loved Ted Williams for all the right reasons…he was the greatest player of his times, as well as a war hero in a few wars! I found several things that I have in common with Stanly Fish… his father passed his baseball genes on to him,too. Mine,
taught me baseball 101 and Cubs history, as well as a special chapter on Hank Greenberg when I was 8 years old, back in the summer of 1945. When the Cubs clinched the pennant, I asked my dad to take me to the World Series… he said “I was too young” but made me a PROMISE… he would take me the next time! In ’46 I heard the expression “WAIIT ‘TIL NEXT YEAR’ for the first time. 60 years ago this year, I went to my first
Opener and had mixed emotions when Greenberg, playing in his first N.L. game for the Pirates smashed a 2 out double to left-center in the 6th inning to drive in the games only run. A month later, I was on hand to see Jackie Robinson make his Chicago debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers…
This year I hit 70, and that’s not homers… I’m still waiting to get to the PROMISE-LAND to see the Cubs in a World Series… and if it never happens in my lifetime… at least Red Sox fans know, if it’s worthwhile having… it’s worthwhile waiting for… even if it is only acouple of years or
86 years… Cheers to Mr. Fish and the 2007 Boston Red Sox and their fans.

Thank goodness I was able to separate the private life of both men from their professional lives. It is hard not to love artists as great as these two men. They were my favorites. Anyone that works as hard at his trade as they did has to be admired.

I love your article”The kid & Old Blue Eyes”.I grew up in Warwick,Rhode Island and know exactly what you mean. I differ only in one way, as a kid I remember that anthem you mentioned. The “Wait til next yr.” cry of Sox Nation. Today I wake up and they won the World Series. Not only won it but dominated a couple of good teams to do it.Both Clev. & Rockies are darned good teams. But from all the loss provided to a young boy growing up in an Italian household, I needed to win at something. All the guys at my dads club,”Ralph’s Cafe”‘ on Bald Hill Rd.were screaming at the T.V. and The Yankees were always winning, during the series. Thats it,I thought ,I’ll rout for those Yankees and I’ll be a winner.I’ve been a Yanks fan ever since.Today the Sox win the series and A-Rod opted out of his contract for $$.We are about to loose a group of Yankee players that are excellent players along with Joe Torre. I know we need alot to win, as a Yankee fan though we never say “Wait til next year” We just go out and find a way to do it.Thanks again for a great article.

I loved both of those guys,too!I first saw Frank with the Tommy Dorsey band in 1943(along with Jo Stafford,Johnnie Mercer,Buddy Rich)and followed him to the very end–and,yes,he was certainly a wise guy.
I followed Teddy Baseball from the moment I got his baseball card in 1941.I listened on the radio in 1941 when he played the doubleheader in Philly and raised his batting average when he could have opted out and still batted .400.I saw him play every time he came to Philly to play the Athletics.
His was the most the most beautiful and graceful batting swing I have ever seen;I guess one might say that he and Frank were the greatest swingers of their time—–or any time!!

I’m frankly confused by this article. I was expecting some sort of deep connection to take place between Fish’s two heroes and instead this turned into some sort of attempt to relive painful memories as a Sox fan and remind people to believe. Certain that I had just missed something, I reread but am still perplexed. Besides nostalgia, what correlation is there between part one of the article and part two?

I was intrigued to read this because despite being a Yankee fan, Ted Williams has always been one of my favorite players. When I was young, he signed my yankee hat (take that boston!) and was a true gentleman. I always found it odd that despite playing for the self-loathing team that I despised, he ranked up there with my favorite yankees in my baseball echelon. His work ethic and obsession with his craft must have inspired me to respect that despite having played for the ‘other guys.’

While my interest in Sinatra is not as strong, I had hoped there would be something Fish could add to make me understand something new. Instead I am left scracthing my head as to why we are still talking about Red Sox fans, ‘baseball’s second greatest underdogs,’ as they now share more in common with the Yankees (payroll and now two world championships in four years) than any other team in the league.

Professor Fish, I don’t mean disrepect by these comments. I am just truly confused and would love it if you felt the need to rebute. What does a comparison between Sinatra and Williams have to do with generations of Red Sox failure followed by recent success?

It’s a problem of public relations and celebrity in recent history that we have such difficulty separating the men, Williams and Sinatra, from the art. Or, more accurately, acknowledging our willingness to gobble up tales of lascivious or reprehensible behavior, making us feel like insiders with privileged information and thus closer to the celebrity himself.

Like you, Prof. Fish, I’ve justified my love of Sinatra’s art for years, particularly as a grad student in English in the 90s, when feminist and gender studies suggested that to lionize a Sinatra was itself misanthropic. But how can you deny the joy of the singer of Sinatra’s Swingin’ Sessions or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers, or the despair of Only the Lonely? There was swagger in the ’57 live performances that lead to the packaging of Rat Pack as a product of the ’60s, but there were also readings of the American songbook that rival the work of jazz artists of the time.

Thanks for your reflections on heroism and artistry, and what happens when they occasionally collide.

I was cadding for some friends at a Miami golf course. Ted Williams was in the foursome ahead of us. As they finished the 18th hole it was starting to get dark. Three of the players headed for the cluhouse, the fourth (Ted Williams)went over to the practice green and started putting.

The story told in the article about Frank Sinatra and the chair reminds me of my own encounter with Frank Sinatra. My husband and I had been invited to have dinner with Mr. Sinatra after a performance he gave at the Sands Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ. I was a new mother, and had left my baby upstairs in the hotel with grandparents just to partake of this unique opportunity. I was surrounded by a glamorous and “important” entourage at the dinner table, who did not take long to discern that I was no one of consequence. For most of the dinner, I had nothing to add to the conversation because the world of the other diners was so far removed from what I knew. However, at one point, I did see a place where I could inject an observation. When I did so, my soft voice was completely ignored. Mr.
Sinatra apparently noticed this. He very graciously stopped the entire table from talking, leaned over to me and said, “Now what was that, dear?” He made everyone listen to what I had to say. (To be honest, I was mortified to have to repeat it, but I wouldn’t have dared reject such a gracious gesture.) From that day on he was a hero of mine also.

How things change. When I was working in New York many years ago a friend of mine and I met at Toots Shor’s for lunch. Sinatra was there when we walked in and my friend was a friend of Sinatra so we ended up having lunch together. I found Sinatra interesting and affable. When I got back to my office and told people I had lunch with him nobody cared much. Last week’s I flew back from Los Angeles and Paris Hilton was about four rows behind me. I told people about it and the story swiftly got around. I have had at least 50 people come up to me and ask what was she like, was she pretty and did I talk to her. I answered: “I don’t know;” “yes;” and “no, I did not talk to her.” I don’t follow baseball anymore so my heart will never be broken.

Thanks for the memories. I listen to Frank every day, with pleasure. From his time with Harry James to the Summit at the Villa Venice to L.A. Is My Lady it’s all the best. Sometimes, when I’m listening to Frank with Nelson on Sinatra’s Swingin’ Sessions, I gaze at the cover with Frank singing and Nelson, on the left, conducting the orchestra, and I’m right there, one of the horn players. Thanks again.

+Here they are again, thoughts I believed were thought and gone. Mr Williams also should be remembered for flying a Marine fighter aircraft in combat, both WWII and Korea. We all need heroes. Mr Fish is one of mine.

The only music I’ve saved in ITunes on my Mac is by Frank.
In regards to the Red Sox, I’m beginning to think the Bay Area has some sort of jinx on several teams: Giants, As, 49ers, Raiders, Cal and Stanford have each started recent seasons with high hopes only to plunge into huge losses. When it looked recently like Cal had a shot at No. 1, I told a fellow alumni (my son) not to get his hopes up. Sad.
Posted from San Mateo by Georgia.

My late father had the unusual distinction of having been twice a protégé of Ted Williams, who had been both his coach in the Boston Youth Baseball League and his Navy flight instructor at Pensacola during the War. According to my father, there had been at Pensacola a student pilot in his group who was not quite as good as the others – let’s call him Smith – and for the rest of the war and thereafter, whenever Ted Williams spoke with my father, the first words out of his mouth were “How’s Smith doing?”

My brother in law once ran into Ted Williams in a diner in a town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland when Ted was on a fishing trip. He went up to Ted to say hello and Ted invited my brother in law and his friend to join him at his booth. They talked about baseball and fishing for quite a while.

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Stanley Fish is a professor of humanities and law at Florida International University, in Miami. In the Fall of 2012, he will be Floersheimer Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Duke University and the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is the author of 15 books, most recently “Versions of Antihumanism: Milton and Others”; “How to Write a Sentence”; “Save the World On Your Own Time”; and “The Fugitive in Flight,” a study of the 1960s TV drama. “Versions of Academic Freedom: From Professionalism to Revolution” will be published in 2014.